Lyle Lovett Quotes

My favorite Aggie joke? I'm sorry I don't understand the question

I'm really in no danger of being perceived as a famous movie actor!

You don't have to have anything in common with people you've known since you were five. With old friends, you've got your whole life in common.

That's right, you're not from Texas. But Texas wants you anyways.

The most important thing you can do as a performer is to be yourself, or be an onstage version of yourself. If youre not being true to yourself, and somebody likes that other version of you, youre kind of stuck.

It's important to be successful enough to be able to keep doing what you love.

I've never been ready to do a single thing I've ever done in my life. I haven't been prepared enough, haven't studied enough, haven't known enough. You can never be ready. There's just so much to know.

Singing your own songs is all about individual expression

I don't ever try to anticipate my audience. I just write the songs I want to write, and hope people like 'em.

It's difficult to get started-when it comes to dealing with an unknown quantity, people are reluctant to trust their own opinion. It helps if two or three people give you a boost.

If you forget the words to your own song, you can always claim artistic license. Forget the words to the national anthem and you're screwed.

When you have a solid upbringing and a strong sense of place, that sustains you. My sense of home never leaves me.

It's true that I did get the girl, but then my grandfather always said, Even a blind chicken finds a few grains of corn now and then.

When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their sets and introduce me to the person that owned and booked the club.

She was ugly from the front, and I said ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. Well, I could handle it behind her.

I'm really just trying to do things that I enjoy. I'm trying to play music that I like to play and like to listen to. I just have to think if I like those different kinds of music, there are other people who aren't so different from me.

I like my audience. I always feel when up on stage performing that I could enjoy having a cup of coffee with any one of them.

If it's not too late, make it a cheese-burger

I enjoyed hearing people do their own songs. I became attracted to singer-songwriters. I became interested in them as people; was curious about what they wanted to say.

Kemo Sabe, kiss my ass.

Who keeps on loving you when you've been lying, saying things that ain't what they seem? God does, but I don't. God will, but I won't.

What would we do if we didn't try? We have to try.

I've always thought that writing isn't really that hard. It's having a good idea that's hard.

Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

I married her just because she looks like you.

I joke that I've never been burdened by having an actual hit. There's something to that. My records have sold enough to make the record company money to help me keep my job. But I've never had anything so firmly ingrained in the mind of the public that I'm expected to repeat it.

There's no bad luck, There's just the luck you've found.

I've been lucky to be able to make the records I've wanted to make. The record company has never pressured me to cut certain songs.

Horses teach you patience and how to do things the right way so you can get the right result.

I am limited by what I can think of to do-my choices are not so great.

Home is where my horse is.

Look around and you will see this world is full of creeps like me.

I played guitar when I was young and never really considered it as a way to make a living

Both my parents worked, so I was home alone a lot, and I would listen to their records. They belonged to the Columbia House record club, so they had records!

Writin songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent idea, the songs are the easy part. Actually having something to say is the hard part. If you get an idea for a song, then it pulls you along. There are just some ideas that you get that are really hard to edit out; it's hard to stop thinking about some bad ideas. So you just finish it and you end up putting it on a record.

I'm not the kind of writer that can wake up and say, "Okay, I'm gonna write a song today," and have that song be the kind I would want to record. The songs of mine that I end up liking are songs that come from real experience. They're like chapter titles in my life.

My music has always been sort of in-between categories. Sometimes record stores - back when there were record stores - they'd put my records in the country music section, but other record stores would put my records in the pop or even the rock section. As long as it's in the store somewhere, I'm OK with it.

When someone tells me what he or she was doing the first time they heard a song of mine, then I've done a good job. If my song becomes about your life, then I'm successful.

The loss of Jerry Garcia feels like the end of an era in the same way it felt when Elvis died and John Lennon was killed.

Fortunately, I've never had a job

You have to be really good to get away with smashing a guitar.

I don't know what it is about the shower that generates creative thoughts. Maybe it's the hot water. Maybe it's being unencumbered even by the restriction of clothing.

Every afternoon, I was in the pasture with cattle or fishing and shooting my BB gun. That kind of freedom allows imagination to develop.

You can't second-guess your audience. You can only do what you think is right. If you do that, your audience will appreciate you.

Man, I need to impress her, cause I'd like to undress her.

I'm a very lucky man. I get to do the thing I want most in life, write songs and sing them for people, and ride bikes. I love my family. I love my home. I get to work with people I've admired my whole life. It's a pretty good life.

Barbecue sauce is like a beautiful woman. If it's too sweet, it's bound to be hiding something.

Denice Franke is a sensitive and compelling singer and songwriter.